Workbasket – Christmas Sweaters Done

Right up to the last day too!  DW was at work, so I finally had time to work on his Christmas blanket.  He’d mentioned that he would like a larger sofa blanket than the one previously.  Because of the size of the blanket, I had to lay it out in the living room. The only problem with that plan was that when I have been home, so has he.  In the living room too.  I had taken the day off to get ready for dinner guests. DW would be at work until 3pm on Christmas Eve, so I had time to “whip it out” before gift exchange later the same night.  I quickly got to work cutting off the factory edge and making the sides even. Both dogs were very helpful during this whole blanket making evolution.

Having finished tying all the fringe and double checking that I hadn’t missed any, I got to work putting the letters on the Gson’s Christmas sweaters. Two days before I had used the “H” in the Harry Potter knitting pattern book as a guide to figure out the “E” and the “L” of the Gson’s names.  I used graph paper and marked off the stitches as I went.

I then got busy putting the letter on the red sweater using the duplicate stitch in an off-white. The next day I was working on the same sweater during my lunch break. At some point I ran the tail end under the duplicate stitches on the front of the sweater.  It more fully filled out the white letter over the red of the sweater.  It looked way better!  Guess what I decided to do?

Yup, pulled out all the previous stitches and started over.  This time I had a plan though. I would start on the bottom right side, work my way across the whole row and then run the tail under the white stitches back to the beginning of the row.

So much tidier!!

I did forget to mention how I decided where to place the letters.

I found the center line top to bottom.  Using the white thread I basted that line.  When I placed the “E”, I used also used the center of left and right.  :-/  This made the letter look really low on the sweater.  No time to move it now.  When I marked for the “L”, I basted just under the arms.  The placement worked out much better.  Live and learn I guess.

As my superpower must be forgetting to take pictures of work (in progress or complete), I snapped a pic of it on Gson #2.

Now onto some gifts that didn’t quite get finished…